


The Answer

by cupiscent



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-29
Updated: 2003-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:19:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupiscent/pseuds/cupiscent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sex is not the answer.  It might be the question.  You're allowed to phone a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Answer

**Triangle**

Orli had two fingers inside her - her knees either side of his hips where he had her writhing on the kitchen counter - two fingers and her breath coming in tiny gasps when the knock came on the door.

"Shop!" a male voice shouted, and Orli called, easy as you please: "In here!"

She made a strangled noice, jerked her knees closer and herself back, but she was up against the wall already, and Orlando was solid between her thighs. She gasped again as his fingers twisted, nudged, and Dom stepped into the doorway.

Dom. She recognised him from photos, from Orli's raptured, jerky storytelling. He was sharp-edged, reality staggering somewhere between her eyes and her addled mind. She could see him over Orli's shoulder, face blank in the doorway, and she grabbed Orli's elbow, his arm - oh God stop (don't stop).

Dom's face changed. He grinned, smirked, was wicked with glee. Orli pressed; her eyes slipped closed, her mouth open.

Dom was speaking. He said: "Who's this tasty morsel?"

"Keira," Orli said, and she forced her eyes open. Dom was coming around Orli to stand close. Orli stepped aside slightly, made room for him. Let him into her space.

Dom leaned over her, his eyes dark, bright and blurred. "Keira," he repeated.

She whimpered into his mouth, against his tongue against hers. His hand was over her breast. His thumb flicked a nipple through fabric, circled, rolled, and Orli's fingers thrust and she came.

She sagged against the wall as Orli reclaimed his fingers. They talked to each other as if she wasn't there.

"You're late." Orli was faintly chiding.

"You started without me," Dom countered.

"Plenty of time yet."

"Good." Dom smiled down at her, hand on her bare knee, hand on her bunched skirt at her hip. "Pleasure to meet you."

Keira smiled, feeling it stretch her face. "Pleasure's all mine."

He wiggled his eyebrows - up-down - and grinned, leaned in quickly to smack a kiss on her cheek. "Not for long." With a wink, he turned away, his hands leaving her. "I brought wine," he told Orli, who was washing his hands at the sink. "Let's drink it on the balcony. The sunset's going to be fucking superb." He strode across the kitchen and was back out the door, under ten minutes from when he'd first appeared.

Orlando shut off the water and reached for the towel. Keira slipped off the counter, cautiously, like her legs might not hold her. The fine skin between her fingers, at the backs of her knees, was still tingling. Orli slung the towel over his shoulder, and reached into his back pocket. Tossed her her underwear. The cotton had his faintly-damp fingerprints on it. She shimmied it up her legs and smoothed her skirt down.

She wondered if she should have bothered. She felt light-headed.

"You alright, Keira?" She looked up, and Orli was watching her closely, leaning against the sink. His face was so open, so Orli, all concern and care. "This goes no further than you want it. Just say. I'll go out there and tell Dom to piss off."

And he would. She knew Orli, knew he wouldn't push her into anything. Knew it could all be on her terms.

She'd barely registered Dom. He was just a blur in her memory already, a sparked, recognised accent and a faint burn in the pit of her stomach.

His voice trickled down the hall. "You're missing it! And bring the corkscrew."

Keira smiled, and felt a thrill chase itself through her limbs. She couldn't even say the words, couldn't acquiesce.

But Orli knew her, too. He grinned, and reached up into the cupboard for three wineglasses. She opened the drawer for the corkscrew.

The living room was full of golden light from the sun loitering on the horizon. Dom had left the sliding glass door open, and Keira squinted and blinked as she stepped out onto the balcony, Orli following her.

Dom was standing by the railing. He grinned at her as she handed him the corkscrew, and she almost blushed. Orli set the glasses on the cheap plastic outdoors table he had out here. Dom twisted the coil into the bottle, and held the bottle between his thighs to yank the cork out. Keira looked out at the view - the sun wallowing into the ocean - and choked on a laugh when Orlando nudged her.

The wine was red and Orli's glasses were large. Dom poured generously, and handed out the glasses.

"I've heard a lot about you," she told him, leaning back against the railing.

"Oh God," he said, casting a quick look at Orli, who just grinned. "I can imagine. I deny it all."

She let her eyes go wide. "You do?" she asked, in her best scandalised tone.

"Wait! What's he told you?"

Keira laughed, and took a sip of the wine. It was rich, fruity, and sent a tingle straight through her. "Oh, nothing you won't be able to live up to, I'm sure."

Dom raised an eyebrow over the rim of his wineglass, and she took another sip. She could feel Orlando's eyes on her. She could feel the sun behind her start to burn into orange as it crash-landed far out to sea.

Everything seemed weighted with meaning. Every little glance. Definitely every little touch. Even the wrinkles at the corners of Dom's eyes as he squinted into the sun to look at her while they talked. They swapped names, places, dates, the times they could have met but didn't actually. (Keira wondered if she'd seen him at one of those industry functions and known somehow, somewhere, impossibly, that this day was going to come.)

Orli compared the sunset to others in other places, including first Dom and then her, and then leaving them both out to talk about Malta and Mediterranean beauty as Dom mouthed "wanker" extravagantly behind his hand and she giggled so hard she thought she was going to spill the wine.

When that happened, Dom grabbed her glass and Orli grabbed her wrist, and there she was, caught between them.

They stood at the railing, in a line, watching the last of the day leak pink and purple across the sky and waves. When Keira looked down, she saw their feet in a row, she and Orli curling their toes over the edge of the balcony.

"You're the odd man out, Dom," she said. "You should take your shoes off. Get comfortable."

She looked up, and Dom was looking back at her, his eyes shadowed. Orli was leaning against her shoulder, his breath fanning against her neck. The wine was finished.

She swallowed.

"Let's go inside," Orli said, and Dom nodded, and she was drawn in their wake.

It was starting to get cold, the wind picking up off the water, but it wasn't until they'd closed the glass door behind them that Keira shivered. Orli was within arm's reach and Dom kicked off his shoes by the sofa and they both turned to look at her. It was as though the room was divided, them versus her, and her blood might evaporate in the heat of two pairs of eyes on her.

"I meant it," Orli said. "Only as far as you want to."

She'd never thought. Never thought of this, of doing this, of the possibility. But now she couldn't think of not doing it.

"What if I want it all?" she said.

Dom stepped up behind Orli, at his shoulder, not touching. "As far as you want," he echoed. He wasn't smirking or grinning. He was almost stern, intense, and she couldn't take her eyes off the line of his jaw.

Keira followed it, followed it in until she was standing in front of them. She could feel her whole world sway. But she didn't have to decide; she could have.

So she stroked her hand down Orli's neck, the familiar sweep of tendon under her fingers, as she turned her face up to Dom's. She kissed him, and he drew her in so deftly, so completely, his tongue and lips moving in counterpoint to hers, making her chase, making her dizzy with it.

She swayed again, and an arm slid around her waist - Orli, she thought - a hand settled on her shoulder - Dom? His mouth was inexorably wringing her out, gently blinding her, his tongue running along the line of her lower lip. She couldn't keep track of the hands. On her hip, smoothing up her ribcage snug under her breast, twining through her hair. There were hands all over her, working in skin-tightening tandem, never overlapping, liquefying her bones into pure lust.

Edging forward, she slid snug against their bodies. Orli on her right, Dom at her left shoulder. Orli's neck shifted under her hand, and Keira's fingers slipped up into the curls at the nape of his neck. She tugged, and (somehow) dragged her mouth from Dom's, took one shaky breath before Orli leaned, lunged, and was kissing her.

This was known, this was familiar, but never like this, never with Dom curling around her body, arching in behind her. Orli was bright, sparkling, like sea-spray full in the face. Dom was the dark pull of the tide. He was at her back, arms around her, hands travelling down the centre of her torso. The buttons of her shirt fell loose. His wrists brushed over her nipples, and her skin tightened to gooseflesh.

His hands settled heavy on her hips, Orli's hands now on her shoulders, pushing at her shirt to bare skin over her shoulder blades. He was still kissing her, hard and fast and trying to take all of her attention. Except that in the space revealed by Orli's hands, Dom's breath feathered against her skin. Where neck met shoulder his teeth closed lightly over the tendon as Orli's mouth left hers, gasping air cool on his saliva on her lips. Orli pushed her shirt down her arms, and Dom's hands found the zip on her skirt and there she was, in the space between them.

Dom's mouth was on the side of her neck saying, "She tastes good," against her skin.

And on the other side, Orli's lips pressed, "She does," under her ear.

Keira could feel energy coiling, heavy in her thighs, juddering in her stomach, high and tight in her chest. "Shall we take this somewhere else?" It was barely a whisper.

Dom hummed consideringly, her skirt undone now, clinging to her hips. "I like it here."

Orli was just laughing, breath against her chin, and fine, fine, fucking fine. She yanked her hands out of her sleeves, left the shirt in Orli's hands to get her hands on him, pulling his t-shirt up. "Then clothes off. Now."

Dom murmured in her hair - "Imperious" - and she added: "You too."

Orli dropped her shirt, raised his arms with a smirk to let her pull the t-shirt up and over his head. Keira tossed it onto the couch as he started work on the fastenings of his trousers (and she knew he wasn't wearing anything under them). When she turned to Dom, he was balling up his shirt, casting it aside. Which left him in just jeans, and she pushed her hands around his waist, trailing the tips of her fingers over the waistband. Her eyes flickered over his bare chest, the unfamiliar contours, the width, the shape.

He grinned, and she grinned back. "You're just getting in the way," he said.

She drew her hands back to the front. "Oh, I can be helpful." She popped the first button, the second. "I can be very helpful." The next two, and he was amazingly sexy with his eyes so dark like this, as if she needed evidence with him hard under her hand. Keira pushed denim off his hips and thought maybe she could do the rest from her knees. It had a certain appeal.

But her knees half bent and Orli pressed flush up against her back, all heat, tugging her skirt down off her hips, and she jerked and got tangled, and staggered. Slipped. It was just so much easier to go with it, try to fall gracefully, and end up half-sitting, half-sprawled on the carpet against the couch. Laughing her head off.

Dom and Orli exchanged a glance over her head, two men with their pants unfastened. Fucking hilarious.

Damn sexy too.

"What are you doing down there?" Dom asked, looking back down at her.

Keira managed to still her laughter to just a twitch of her lips. "Waiting for you two," she said.

They both laughed. But they also both went for their half-finished undressing. Orli stripped off his trousers (and she was right, nothing underneath, just him...) and then he was stretching out beside her, over her, pressed hard and hot against her thigh and kissing her, licking at her mouth, teeth against her lip.

She mumbled, moaned, into his mouth and arched up. Sensation raced over her skin. She shifted and wriggled. Yes, c'mon, right there, can't we just...

Orli moved half off her, just leaning on her shoulder now, and she whimpered, but the next moment there were other hands on her - oh, hello again, Dom - thumbs hooking into her underwear at the hips. She tilted up, eager to help him slide the cotton too fucking slowly down her legs. Orli's hands crept under her back, finding and unhooking her bra with the same ease that always made her laugh - "Never trust a man who can get into your underwear," her mother had told her - but she didn't so much as giggle now.

They got rid of her bra in a fumble of arms, and Dom was sliding his hands back up her thighs. Keira could feel trembling under her skin, itching to get out. She pushed forward, up, into Orli's hands over her breasts, through, past him, making Dom sit back on his heels smirking into her face. She leant her weight on her hands on his thighs. Leaned forward until he tilted back, their foreheads and breath together, and the muscles of his legs shifted under her hands. He raised his knees on either side of her and she eased herself against him where he pressed hot and riveting against her belly. Orli's hands curled around her ankles, up the backs of her calves, and she was looking into Dom's eyes when she said, "I wonder if you taste like Orli", and they went almost black.

Orli tugged her ankles and she slipped down Dom's body, crawling slightly backwards to snug up against Orli as his hands moved, raced up her spine. Dom hissed a breath as she took him in her mouth, and exultation made her creative, with her tongue, with her fingers. He was vocal above her, but quiet, hissed mutterings and explosive curses almost like compliments and the occasional muffled groan where she wondered if he'd bitten his lip. Were his eyes closed, or was he watching the back of her head?

Or was he watching Orli running his hands light-firm over her back - the warm, sure touch she'd always known he'd have - making her arch. Making her whimper and double her efforts. "So bloody beautiful," Orli muttered behind her, his hands running down over her buttocks and under her thighs, lifting, urging, and _yes_; she let him raise her hips, shifted with him, pressed against him.

When Orli nudged at her, she gasped, traded her hand for her mouth on Dom, buried her face in the crease of his thigh. She sank her teeth into the flesh just above his hip as Orli pushed into her - slowly, slowly, fucking tease.

"Yes, c'mon, fuck her." Dom, above her. She felt an actual growl rising in her throat. He lost coherency again when her lips slid back down the length of him.

And fuck her Orli did. Long, sure, smooth strokes that she let herself move with, forward and back, waves on the sand, the three of them pulsing in the same rhythm. Orli's hands on her hips, Dom's on her shoulders, and there she was, caught between them. Loving it. Going out of her mind with it. Surging over the top with it, heavy effervescence inside of her and setting her on fire, it was eternity right here, sweeping her away and still moving with them. Rolling waves of it, thought and deed. And this was definitely the best orgasm of her life to date.

Dom broke the rhythm first, coming with another of those bit-lip groans and his grip tight on her shoulders as she swallowed. "Oh God," Orli gasped, the first thing he'd said since sliding inside her, and it was all shot, his thrusts convulsive. The soft ends of her own euphoria rode them out into a sagging jumble of sweaty limbs, Dom's legs and Orli's arms tangled around her.

Keira was sort of comfortable. She never wanted to move. She wanted to stay here with her eyes closed, face pressed into the carpet of Orli's living room, savouring the moment, this beautifully-won lethargy creeping through her. Because surely this was bliss.

.

Keira woke up slightly cramped, her bones heavy, her head fuzzy. Even if not for the morning-after lethargy, the twinges in tell-tale places, the taste in her mouth, she'd still know that it hadn't been a dream by the fact she had slept, naked, wrapped in a blanket on Orli's couch.

She was alone.

There was barely-blue light in the room. Dawn was loitering, waiting impatiently to happen. She could see enough to see Orli's t-shirt still hanging half off the end of the coffee table. She bumped Dom's shoes as she swung her legs off the couch.

It was cold. She hoarded her warmth in the blanket, wrapping it around her as she stood up and looked around.

They were on the balcony. A faint breeze billowed the curtain through the quarter-open sliding door. It carried the sound of their voices in to her, warm and quiet and continuous. Dom was sitting on the low table, bare toes splayed on the tiles and his shirt unbuttoned, tails loose around his thighs. Orli, shirtless, gleaming weirdly blue, faced him, leaning back against the side railing. They held mugs, steaming faintly. Tea?

Dom started laughing. Not the threaded, coiling sound that had thrilled Keira the night before, but helpless, loose, escaping freely into the welcoming pre-dawn air.

"No, seriously." Orli was grinning, angled forward from the railing, shoulders relaxed. "He never told you that?" And then he was laughing too, with his whole body, like Orli did everything. Tilted towards Dom who tilted back, like there were invisible lines drawn between them, marking their space.

Their laughter filled the space between them like treacle. Keira wondered how far it carried over still-sleeping houses. They didn't care. They were sharing their thick-warm mirth with the world.

She carried it with her padding down the hall towards the kitchen. They had shared more than that with her last night. They had shared her.

She couldn't keep the grin down. The thought sat in her stomach like a smouldering ember. She felt wanton. She felt like the most desirable creature in the world. She preened and posed as she poured juice for herself. The light in the kitchen grew brighter, lost its blue edge.

As she drank her juice, looking out over the sink, the sun shouldered its way into the world. And the sunrise was glorious.

*

**Angles**

Keira stepped under the shower spray, then swore and flinched back as the hot water stuttered and spluttered, before cutting in full force. Every time. She'd been here nearly a week now, but she still wasn't used to Orli's damn shower.

Technically, she was staying in the spare bedroom. That had lasted one night. Half an hour's nervous, edgy saying good night at the door, which she'd left purposefully ajar, only to find it still at precisely the same angle in the morning. The second night she'd made her move. Marched into Orli's room without knocking, plonked herself down on the edge of his bed and declared: "If you don't fucking kiss me right now, Orlando, so help me -"

She hadn't got any further. He'd surged up onto his knees, script pages fluttering against the quilt, and kissed her long, hard, fast. Unmistakable. He'd flipped her onto her back on the bed and that had been the last time she'd had control of anything that night. He'd been relentless, like she'd let Jack out of his box after winding too tight. He'd even left marks, fingerprint ridges on her ribcage, though they were fading now as she checked under the hot water. It had been fucking fabulous.

She hadn't slept in the spare room since then.

The thought made her smile which, like just about everything in the past twenty-four hours, led her straight back to waking up yesterday morning. The night that had preceded it.

She could still hardly believe it. It gave her tremours just thinking about it. God, the attention they'd lavished on her, their hands so sure, never fumbling over each other, never touching each other...

The bathroom door opened, and Keira wiped water out of her eyes, blinking through the fogged glass shower door. Which opened, resolving the dark blur behind it into Orli's grinning face.

"You're letting the cold air in," she chided.

The grin turned decidedly wicked, and the bathroom door clicked shut. It took all of two seconds for Orli to shuck his pyjama pants, and he stepped into the steamed cubicle with her, pulling the door shut behind him.

There wasn't much room for two people in here. Keira wasn't really complaining. "And what are you doing here?" she asked.

Orli mocked his own frown, sliding his hands around her waist. "I suddenly realised there was this bloody gorgeous bird in my bathroom, and I couldn't think of a good reason not to be in here too."

She just laughed, turning in his arms to reach for the shampoo.

"Here, let me." His hands closed over hers, and the bottle, and she relinquished it.

She tilted her head back obligingly so he could reach, and his hands were just as amazing as she'd known they would be. When he'd worked up a lather, he dropped abruptly into a scalp-massage, and her fingers tightened involuntarily around the soapdish. She very nearly purred. It took her a moment to realise he'd said something. "Sorry, what?"

"Dom. What did you think of him?" She started laughing - couldn't help it - and he sounded aggrieved. "No, I'm serious."

"Orli, I met him for half an hour and then I had amazing sex with him. I adore him. I want to keep him and take him back to England with me. You guys are far too good at that, by the way."

He made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a grunt. Keira ducked forward under the shower spray and his hands fell from her head like they were being washed away with the suds. She rinsed for a moment and pulled back out again, clearing water from her eyes as she turned to face him.

Orli was wearing a little secret smile that she thought she'd maybe seen before. When he was staring off into space, or talking on his phone or something. "We've done it before," he admitted.

"You studs," she teased, sliding her hands up his sudsy chest. "You mean I'm not the only girl to benefit from such special attention? I'm heartbroken." She batted her eyelashes, and he laughed.

"Not in a while. It was just... well, you said you wanted to meet him, and I got a wild idea." That grin of his was too disarming. And the way it slid like that, straight into sexy... just made her knees weak.

"I said I wanted to _meet_ him," she pointed out, trying to keep her mind on the topic. She had a feeling there was something important she was missing, but it was hard to think with his hands trailing up and down her spine like that.

"So what's the problem?"

"Need I remind you about the half-hour acquaintance and amazing sex again?"

"No, I remember. I was there."

He smirked, and she seriously contemplated hitting him. But - ohyes, just there between her shoulder blades. She arched forwards slightly against him. He was half-hard against the curve of her stomach, and she could feel everything slipping. She managed to raise her eyebrows.

"Fine," he allowed. "You want to meet him, meet him. Have tea with him or -" He turned them both, fast as a striking snake, and she yelped as her back hit the cold tiles. "- whatever."

More than half-hard, now, and she grinned. "Orli, are we about to do it in your shower?"

He just dragged his mouth down her throat. He had a knee between her legs and his hands on her hips slipping her a little up the cold tiles. She reached up and hooked her fingers over the top of the shower stall, scrabbled for purchase with the other as he pushed her up higher. She hooked one knee up over his hip, and he hefted her, pulled her other thigh up with his hips forcing hers to the wall. Searching fingers found the shower head - would it hold?

Orli bent, his mouth at her breasts, and her head bumped back against the tiles, her hair sticking wet and spread. It'd do, and Keira gripped it, and pushed back against him as best she could.

"Have a little respect for my shower," he mumbled around her nipple.

"Why?" she gasped. "You obviously don't."

He laughed, a buzz straight through her, and thrust into her.

It wasn't the most elegant fuck she'd ever had, slipping and slippery with sweat and steam, making the rhythm jagged. But somehow it worked, combined with the inexpressible thrill of the untried location, the newness of it, assaulting all her senses. And Orli did this to her, opened her up like this, like sex on the beach and actually in the back of a car. Nothing was out of the question with him, and he infected her with his spirit. He was pretty adventurous. For a guy who'd waited until she made the first move.

Her fingers slipped as she came, but Orli was barely five seconds behind her - she never knew how he did that, did he wait for her or something? In a slither of fumbling limbs they managed to remain upright. Orli made sure she was steady on her feet before leaning back.

She peeled herself off the wall, peering over her shoulder. "Wow." And she turned a little to show him the grid of tile-marks on her back.

He grinned. "Very artistic."

They were fading already, washing away like all the other evidence. Orli tipped his head back, eyes closed and grin broad against the spray. He stretched his shoulders, like a contented cat, and Keira thought of him and Dom, laughing together on the balcony. Invisible lines between them. The way Dom's chin came up and Orli's head tilted.

Orli tilted his head down and opened his eyes. Caught her watching him. "What?"

"I think I will," she said.

"Will what?"

"Meet Dom properly. Have tea or -" she smiled "- whatever."

He looked down to the taps, twisted them sharply, and the water stopped like it had never been. Except everything was dripping with it. When he looked up again he was smiling. "You do that."

.

"Do I have a what?"

"A teapot."

Dom stared down at her laughing on his front step. His and Elijah's, actually, but he'd said when she'd called earlier that he was going to be home alone tonight.

"Do I have a teapot?" Dom repeated. He was looking perplexed. Keira was looking him over. Appraising, like she hadn't had the chance to do two nights ago. He dressed like he only bought clothes he loved, and then didn't think at all about what he was wearing. She liked it. "No, I don't have a teapot."

"Good thing I didn't bring tea then." She pulled the bottle out from behind the folds of her dress. "Cinnamon-infused vodka instead?"

His grin was a sharp slice of brilliance. "You're a goddess amongst mortals."

"You're just saying that to get into my pants," she said, sliding past him in the space he left. She winked, and his eyebrows waggled. They both laughed.

Dom got two plastic tumblers from the kitchen and shooed Keira through into a lived-in living room. "Bachelor boys," she sniffed in mock-disapproval, picking up a t-shirt from the back of the couch with one finger. "Going to blame Elijah for this one?"

"Nah, that's mine, it's a fair cop." Dom grabbed it, stuffed it haphazardly into a battered duffel bag under the coffee table.

Dom poured the vodka - generous, but not overly so - and Keira sat in a corner of the couch. Looked around. Added up. "You're sleeping in Elijah's living room?" Then she wondered if that was prying too far. Hard to know where the boundaries were with a guy she barely knew, but knew the taste of.

Dom just shook his head as he passed her the tumbler. "Long story." She laughed. "What?"

"The number of long stories I've heard about you," she said, taking a sip (and wow, Orli was right, this was great stuff), "and now you won't tell me one."

"Orli talks a lot of shit," Dom sniffed into his vodka.

"He talks a lot about you," Keira corrected, but looked away, around the room again. Books and DVDs were jumbled on the shelves. There were photos in frames, and she recognised them. "It's been bizarre, because I've felt like I _should_ know you, and Lij, and Viggo, and everyone, but I don't. Didn't. Um."

Dom was sniggering. At her. "You're blushing.

"Am not."

"Are too."

She threw a cushion at him and poked out her tongue. They both laughed. "Of course," she noted, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling. "It doesn't take much to make Orli gush."

"It doesn't," Dom agreed, settling in a beanbag with a slithering hiss of beans. "He always sees the best in people. There's always something that amazes him."

Keira smiled, dabbled her fingers in her drink. "He's the most open, honest, loving person I know." And this time she did watch Dom, licking vodka off her fingers.

He met her gaze steadily, with a faint smile. "I'll drink to that."

They drained their tumblers, and Keira uncurled from the couch. "No, don't get up. Let me."

"You're trying to get me drunk," Dom declared, but held up his cup to her.

"Of course I am. I'm trying to take advantage." She claimed his raised tumbler and wove her way into the kitchen. There was lemonade in the fridge, she found, and she mixed the vodka. Orli had said that was great too. They'd only drunk a third of the bottle, but she put it in the freezer. Dom and Elijah could enjoy the rest.

When she came back out - glass in each hand and a sway in her hips - Dom was sprawled on the couch, one knee up, the other leg hanging, arms thrown. It looked boneless. Natural and comfortable. Keira remembered Orli saying, "He has this body confidence, you know. Like he can just let it go. Me, I always know where my limbs are."

He'd been very drunk at the time.

She knelt on the couch and passed Dom his drink. She leaned against his raised knee, sipped without taking her eyes off him.

He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"Tell me about it," she demanded.

"What?" Dom was amused. Orli would have been sparking by now, all dark promise.

Just about anything would serve her purpose. "Tell me about New Zealand."

He didn't protest, didn't duck or dodge, didn't say that surely she'd heard enough about it from Orli. Just tilted his head, sipped thoughtfully. "It was intense. You know what it's like on set. The way everything seems to be distilled, infused... like this." He raised his glass, swirled the contents.

She smiled, and drank, let it trace through her. Orli had bought the vodka for her. ("Here, this'll be perfect," he'd said as she'd dithered.)

"But it wasn't just a few months," Dom continued. "It was life. It stretched. Became normal. You got to thinking that maybe this was the way it was always going to be."

"Except it wasn't," she offered.

"Except it wasn't." He swirled the glass again, made it overflow. He licked at the rivulet down the side of the tumbler and she knelt up, leaned a little closer, watching.

His other hand found her hip and tugged. She fell into his lap, sloshing her own drink in her glass, over her wrist. She shrieked, and he caught her elbow, slid his hand up her forearm to bring her hand up to his face. His eyes were closed as he licked the spilt liquid from her wrist, from the pulse point up over the mound of her thumb.

Keira relaxed into his lap, stretching until she felt him pressing against her ribs. She smiled, and stole his drink, draining it even as his eyes flew open. She stretched up, leaned, crawled further up, straddling his leg. She reached over his shoulder, pressed against him to place the glass on the end table. His thigh pushed up against her, and she hummed satisfaction in his ear, bit at the lobe. The tendon in his neck flexed as he tilted his head back to drain her vodka.

"So," Dom murmured, breath stirring the wisps of hair near her ear. She took the empty tumbler from him and set it next to the other on the table. There was an openness in his voice, a stand-offish invitation, but no ambiguity in his hand heavy on her hip, the press of him against her knee.

"Just want to confirm my first impressions," she said, pulling back slightly.

He laughed easily, letting her slip from his grasp. She stepped off, beside the couch, and bent over him. Her hair fell over her face and she pushed it back impatient. Her nails dragging on denim as she popped the buttons on his jeans. When he had the idea - eyes dark and half-lidded as he pushed jeans and boxers over his hips - she straightened, hooked a hand under her skirt and tugged at her underwear.

Keira had never much liked wearing skirts, but she was starting to see the attraction.

She nudged one knee onto the couch and straddled Dom, took her time settling over and around him, did it beautifully slow. His head tilted back against the arm of the couch, but he was silent, just breathing.

Keira grinned and leaned forward, nipping at his Adam's apple. His face stretched in an answering grin, and his hands on her hips started her moving, a risingfalling rhythm. She pushed herself upright, spreading bracing fingers on Dom's T-shirted chest.

"Tell me..." she said.

"What?" Barely a whisper.

Her own voice seemed caught in her throat. "The other girls. You've done it before."

"O-" He swallowed hard; she watched the movement of his throat. "He told you."

"Yes." Keira rolled her shoulders, her hips. Oh, so distracting, but for all Orli's adventurousness, she'd never been on top like this. It was delicious. She arched her back. "I bet it was in New Zealand."

Dom hummed agreement. She could barely see the glitter of his eyes; the lids almost fully lowered. "And - ah - once in New York. Premiere."

"Fellowship," she guessed.

Dom was moving up to meet her, head tilted back, face tight with concentration and other things she didn't know on him. "Yeah."

It was starting, the warm glow, the pulse, the spangles in her limbs. "Tell me about the first time."

He did, threading the words between them, amidst their rhythm. "One of the props girls. Kiwi. Wild. Orli and - and I, chasing her. She loved it. Then she said: both of you. It was -"

He stopped, but she knew. It was New Zealand, it was then and there, it was possible. Anything was possible. "And you were nervous?"

"Fuck yeah." His laughter was breathless. She was breathless. They were being brought to boiling point. "But she was, it was - fuck!"

And it was, it was, and Keira let her own orgasm creep over her, fell into its dulcet siren song.

She sagged forward against Dom's shoulder, both of them boneless. Just as she contemplated moving, she heard the front door open, out in the hall, and slam shut again. She barely had time to tense before an American accent was striding up the hall - "yeah but that's not what I told him" - with a mid-sentence "Hey Dom" as it passed the living room doorway in a person-shaped blur.

Another door slammed shut, at the other end of the hall, and the voice was cut off.

Keira looked down at Dom, who was laughing. "That was Lij," he managed.

She grinned. "What happens if I ask to meet him?" she teased. "Do all you Rings boys handle introductions the same way?"

Dom kept the grin, but it wasn't as easy, not as sure. "That's just, well, you know, that's only with - "

Keira took pity on him, easing back and off him. "I know." She smiled. "I know."

*

**Hypotenuse**

Orli was in a rush, the way only he could be, with an urgent air and no hurry whatsoever. He came into the kitchen pulling a t-shirt over his head, shaking his curls. "So, how'd it go with Dom last night?"

She poured coffee for both of them. "Mmm. Fine. That vodka was great, thanks."

"Yeah, no worries." Orli frowned absently, flicking through mail from yesterday as his coffee steamed on the bench. He tossed the envelopes aside and took up the mug. "Met him properly now?"

Keira curled her hands around her own mug, and smiled. She knew how she must look, secret and smug. "Well, you weren't there to distract us."

He raised an eyebrow, but he had a mouthful of coffee and couldn't say anything.

She shrugged, one-shouldered, and made it casual. "It was great. In fact, I've invited him over again tonight." She looked down.

But she could still see him from the corner of her eye, his grin. "Did you?"

Darting a glance up, she sipped at the coffee. "You'll be home by eight, right?"

"I'll make sure of it." He drained his mug and grabbed his coat from the back of the chair. "See you tonight." And with a wink and a peck on her cheek, he was gone.

.

It was amazing how nervous Keira wasn't. She had her hair loose, no liquor, and jeans on. She'd had enough of skirts. She sprawled on Orli's bed in a patch of westering sunshine, reading Helen Hollick and letting the clock tick. She kept an ear out and the window open. When she heard a car door and voices, she glanced up at the clock - nearly eight on the dot.

The boys sounded distanced. "Dom, hey man, why're you out here?"

"No answer."

"Didn't I give you a key?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Git."

Laughter. Free, shared, thick. Glinting with the faintest familiarity-worn edges, spiced with anticipation.

The door opened. "Hey, Keira!"

She half-rolled over, held the book open on the bed with one hand. "Oh hey, in here!" Footsteps in the hall, and in they came. Orli first, tossing his jacket into the corner, Dom at his shoulder, saucy half-smile and hands in his pockets. "Sorry, I didn't hear you guys." She smiled, and reached for her bookmark.

"Sleepyhead," Orli said affectionately, coming around the side of the bed and tousling her hair with one hand. "What way is this to greet guests?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dom allowed, coming around the other side, looking down at her. "It has a certain appeal."

Keira pushed the book aside and sat up on the bed as it shifted and tilted under Orli's weight behind her. Dom slid one knee onto the bed, shucking his coat. It went into the corner, with Orli's. He crawled towards her across the bed as she turned, getting her legs under her. Orli's hands on her shoulder, in the small of her back, Dom's on her knee, smoothing up her thigh. Lips on her neck, teeth in the flesh of her arm, just where her t-shirt sleeve ended.

She gave herself a moment to sigh into the sensation. Her skin thrilled to it. They moved so perfectly together, like four hands of the one person, easing her, pushing her, insisting she lay back on the rumpled bedspread.

"Wait," she murmured, an instant before she'd never be able to say it. Hands stilled, rested warm and unmoving against her. They looked down at her, side by side, waiting. She took a deep breath, and said: "I'm the odd one out."

Orli's face flashed into quizzical amusement. "What?"

Dom's eyebrows were high in surprise, or scepticism, or something, but he said: "I think I get it. You and Orli are doing it, right? That's fine."

Orli nodded. "And I assume you shagged Dom yesterday. What's the problem?"

Keira had Dom's hand on her hip, Orli's fingers splayed over her ribs. She slid a hand over each of theirs, wrapped her fingers lightly around their wrists. "But what about you two?"

They stilled instantly, as if she'd spoken the magic words to turn them to stone. She wondered if they were still looking at her. Through her, maybe. She was looking down, at their hands in hers. There was some sort of precarious balance in the air. She didn't care. She tugged at their wrists, and they didn't resist her. Moved sluggish and smooth, as if underwater, and she overlapped their fingers against her stomach. Pressed them together. And looked up.

Dom's eyes were riveted down, where her hands hid theirs. Orli's were closed. Their faces were blank, like canvas waiting for paint. Like actors waiting for direction.

So she directed them.

"Kiss him," she whispered, and it didn't matter who she was talking to, didn't matter that she didn't know. Fingers twitched under her palms, against her stomach. She could hear their breathing, wasn't sure if they were trembling or she just wanted to. Dom looked up slowly from their forcibly joined hands, and Orli's head turned blind, his eyes opening almost against their will.

And they were looking at each other over her body, so close, closer than they'd realised.

"Just a kiss," she whispered again.

Just the smallest movement, jerky and uncertain, forward. There wasn't far to go before they met, faces already angled, lips slightly parted. (Like they'd been waiting for this, like they'd been ready forever.)

They arched over Keira like a sculpture, a work of art. It made her dizzy, and she realised she was holding her breath. She let it hissing out, and the handpile on her stomach descended. Breathing in again, she let her hands fall away.

Their hands stayed, just lying together. Like their mouths. The twitch of a finger, Dom's littlest finger curling around Orli's thumb. The hitching of breath as Orli's head tilted, Dom's lower lip shifted.

They edged backwards, staring at each other as their hands warmed through Keira's t-shirt.

"Kiss him again," she whispered, and saw it was unnecessary. Dom's other hand came up, drawn like gravity into the mass of Orli's curls even as they were leaning back together, open-mouthed and willing.

They kissed like they'd had practice, meshing and sliding, the deep plunging sweep of tongues, hard and sleek and sure. They'd both kissed her, one then the other, and it had been nothing like this, Keira was sure. This was their synthesis, their combination, all Orli's bright splash tempered by Dom's dark certainty.

They were so fucking beautiful. Eyes closed and faces open, curled around each other so obviously the physical proximity wasn't even needed. They shaped the space between them into their own, shared and inviolate. Like that morning on Orli's balcony. Like always.

Keira had been in that space. She'd been that space. She was in it now, her legs stretching between them like the final frontier. It was heady. The thought of breaching that space pounded through her.

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, she edged backwards.

Their hands slipped on her stomach, and like movement had freed them, they sprang away. Dom slid his fingers up Orli's neck. Orli fisted his hands in the front of Dom's t-shirt and tugged. Dom swayed on his knees (and Keira edged further backwards, clearing their barrier inexorably) as he licked at Orli's mouth.

"God," he murmured, voice faint and thick, "you taste so fucking good."

Orli moaned, in the back of his mouth, and Keira had never heard him sound like that. She slid backwards, pulling her knees up. So when Orli pulled Dom hard up against him, there was nothing between them, thighshipschests and mouths desperate, Dom's hands cradling Orli's jaw, Orli's hands spread over Dom's back like he wanted to hold as much of him as he could.

They were so, they were so...

The cold iron of the base of the bed nudged at her lower back, and Keira curled her fingers around it without looking. As if she could look away from them, hands smoothing and pushing, now tugging at the hems of clothes, and the small sounds coming from Dom's mouth on Orli's (or Orli's mouth on Dom's). They were so entwined she wondered if they'd ever get untangled. Wondered if, really, they'd care.

A romantic thought, and she knew it wouldn't be like that. Knew she'd probably fucked everything up for them this afternoon. She'd complicated it all beyond repair, creating more problems than she'd solved. But it just seemed so simple now, with the sun pouring like molten gold through the windows of Orli's bedroom as they tore apart for long enough to pull shirts off. As Orli pressed Dom back against his bed, tangling further, hands and hipjerks. As jeans were unfastened and she curled at the foot of the bed, biting her lip, unable to look away from the bronze sheen of Orli's back, and the insistent press of the knee between his thighs. He knelt up as hands (Dom's hands, their rings and wristbands, so unimaginably perfect on his skin) pushed his jeans from his hips.

She should go. She should leave. She should -

"Keira?"

She jumped, her whole body jerking, at her name in Orli's roughened voice. (Had to be Orli's, because now he was rocking back on his heels and Dom was bending before him, his head out of sight...) She had to clear her throat before she said: "What?"

"Bedside table. Middle drawer. Could you...?" And he gasped, hips twitched. "Fuck, Dom!"

He yanked Dom up by hair and insistence, kissed him hard and ravenous, ravening, all take and yet, somehow, plenty of give. Keira had to close her eyes to be able to turn away and slide off the corner of the bed. Just a few steps to the bedside table, and when she opened her eyes again with her fingers around the drawer handle, they were a duo-toned flesh twist in the corner of her eye. The sound of denim on skin was louder than her breathing and she pawed through the jumbled contents of the drawer, the detritus of Orlando.

She knew it when her hand closed around it. She pulled the bottle out as the contents surged sluggishly within. Fuck Dom indeed.

When she turned back to the bed, Orli had Dom half on his back at the head of the bed, his jeans round his knees and Orli draped over him, hand between their bodies, mouth on Dom's neck. Dom's eyes were shut tight, his fingers clenched in Orli's hair, and his lips moving, muttering constantly, so quietly Keira couldn't even hear him.

They'd forgotten her, she was sure of it, but then Orli eased away, off Dom, raised his head to her. His eyes were blurred. She gave him the bottle.

And Orli turned back to Dom, and pressed the bottle into his hand.

Keira heard her breath catch with Dom's, and his eyes jerked up - God, so sharp, so dark - to Orli. "Are you -?"

"Dom," Orli said, wrenching the jeans over Dom's ankles and they were both naked now, naked in front of her. "Dom," Orli repeated, silky and jagged, crawling up the bed over Dom until he was saying the name a third time against its owner's lips, moaning it there and sayin: "I want - I _need_..."

Dom kissed him, languid lips and cavernous, insatiable lust that Orli matched, arched against him. Until Dom raised the hand holding the bottle, and pressed against Orli's shoulder, just pushed lightly against his collarbone.

They moved like it was orchestrated, Orli leaning back on all fours as Dom slid back to sit against the bedhead, watching as Orli shifted, turned around, presented himself in the middle of the bed like the centrepiece at a banquet. Keira felt dizzy again.

And Dom was looking at her. Unscrewing the lid from the bottle and watching her. She opened her mouth, feeling the pleas climbing her throat - no, let me stay, please, let me... let me _see_.

But before she could say anything, Dom spoke, voice reined in on all sides: "Hold his wrists." She couldn't grasp it, couldn't understand, and he nodded to Orli in front of him. "Hold him steady."

Keira moved, but she could barely feel the carpet under her toes. Found herself back at the foot of the bed, kneeling before the iron frame. Orli moved his hands forward from under his shoulders, arched his back, stretching out towards her. His head was lowered, curls loose, and when she wrapped her fingers around his wrists, they were tight tendon and bone. She could see the muscles all up his arms, picked out in smouldering sunset hues, and his shoulders were quivering.

Dom was on his knees behind Orli, and she could see him over Orli's head and the long burnt-umber runway of his back. He splayed one silver-ringed hand over Orli's hip, the other - Orli took a hissing breath in - somewhere else. Keira could feel his trembling echoed inside her, the faintest tremour, the sweat that wanted to spring out. Dom moved again; Orli's breath rasped.

Dom tossed the bottle aside, onto the pillow, and even as Keira was taking that in, he rasped "Ready?" and Orli grated "Fuck yes." Dom thrust, she saw it in his body, and Orli's head snapped up, his eyes tight shut and face painted in exultation stippled with pain, bottom lip caught under his teeth.

Someone was muttering "Oh god, oh god", but Keira didn't know who. Didn't care. Dom thrust again, and she knew it from the way it passed over Orli's face, rocked his body. She knew the slow rhythm Dom wasn't quite settling into from the push-pull of it where she held Orli's wrist's against the mattress. And from where she knelt at the end of the bed, with Orli's head still thrown back, she could see when Dom reached under Orli, curled his fist around him to double the rhythm, syncopate it, move in time.

Dom was talking, she realised. Could barely hear it over Orli's breathing, tripping into consonant-sounds. Could barely hear it over the blood thundering in her own ears. His steady stream of words, nonsense, those curses like compliments, groans not smothered but low and uncensored. She looked up at him, Dom looking down Orli's back undulating before him, shoulders clenching as he pressed back, caught between Dom's hand and his hips.

Not a chance of waiting, no quarter given, and Keira was still watching Dom's face when Orli came with a clenched-teeth scream ripped out from deep inside him. It flashed across Dom's face like sound could have a visual equivalent and her eyes flicked down to Orli's face and God! It was too much, she was overwhelmed.

Even with her eyes closed, they were wrapped around her, the slick grind of Orli's wrists against her grip, the heavy smell of sweat and sex, Dom's continuous growl, jerking and unheeding - "never even dreamed of this, so bloody good, fuck Orli" - and she could hear it all in his voice, hear it get ragged and break and flood through her as Orli gasped - "Yes Dom" - and it crashed all around her, like the sea, dizzying and terrifying and exhilirating.

*

**QED**

The iron bedframe is cool against her forhead, and Orli's wrists pull out of her slack grip. There are sounds beyond the rushing in her ears, soft lethargic rustles. Maybe even voices.

Keira thinks she should look up. She should see them, like this, like _them_, and she tells herself that she's imagining that pang, that pain.

After all, she had wanted it all.

After all, they were neither of them hers to begin with.

One of them says "Keira" in a voice like sun-warmed honey, so thick and sated, and she thinks she will look up.

She thinks she will smile.


End file.
